


summer evening breezes blew

by ShutUpPercy



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/F, Highschool AU, Soulmate AU, aro/ace percy, i entered this into a contest and it got 2nd place but idk what this is, platonic percabeth, romantic reynabeth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 03:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7601818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShutUpPercy/pseuds/ShutUpPercy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cliches can be forgiven, but in a world where your soulmate appears on your wrist at your first kiss, Annabeth wants nothing more than to avoid being one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	summer evening breezes blew

**Author's Note:**

> (i took the title from laura palmer okay) this was just something i wrote for a contest, and it's a bit of an awkward mix between a high school and soulmate au but i hope the characterisation is forgiving enough haha, and i really have no idea how american schools work so i basically set this in mine which happens to be in glasgow,, so i'm not saying you have to imagine annabeth with a scottish accent but i'm not stopping you ;)

They’d jokingly kept a tally of the amount of times they’d been mistaken as partners for the last two years.  Annabeth could see it from where she sat; sixteen thick lines in different colours of Sharpie, representative of their laughter and the doubts of their friends.  Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase had been best friends for years, but nothing more than that.

 At least, not until Annabeth had started questioning it herself.

Her notebook was open on her knee and her pen in her hand, but she hadn’t actually done any studying for the last half hour.  Percy sat next to her on the bed, brow furrowed, concentrating on deciphering the tiny font in his history textbook, and that was where her focus was. 

Annabeth had never kissed anyone.  The fact that, the moment she did, a name would appear on her wrist,  the name of the person she had the most romantic chemistry with and on invisible to everyone except herself, scared her.  What happened when you kissed the wrong person?  What happened if they lied? 

How did you know who your soulmate was without the crushing disappointment that could come with a name?

She shifted closer to him, almost unconsciously, but Percy noticed.  He glanced up, sea-green eyes meeting Annabeth’s own.  “You okay?”

“Yeah.”  Annabeth forced her thoughts back to earth, but Percy had known her for years.

He wasn’t convinced - Annabeth hadn’t expected him to be.  Folding the corner of the textbook and flipping it shut, he turned.  “What are you thinking about?”

Annabeth tightened her grip on the pen, wishing he’d asked a different question.  She couldn’t brush this off with an _I’m just tired_.  “Soulmates,” she admitted.

“Oh.”  Percy paused for a long time.  “Have you thought about who yours might be? 

Flushing unintentionally, Annabeth shrugged.  Why was she so flustered about this?  “No.  Yeah.  I mean, kind of…” she trailed off, staring at her notebook.

Did she think it was Percy?  Of course.  So did almost everyone who knew them, she figured, but out of politeness most of their friends refrained from poking into each others’ soulmate situations.  But who else could it be?  She and Percy had been best friends for an age, and she’d never trusted anyone more.  Whether she liked him romantically or not was a question she couldn’t bring herself to give an answer to, but she thought she knew it anyway.

“Annabeth, I -” Percy started, but the words caught, leaving Annabeth with no idea what he’d been trying to say.

She’d never been an optimist.

But sometimes - _sometimes_ \- logic worked just as well.

And what had she to lose?

Tilting her head very slightly, and totally unsure of what she was doing, Annabeth leaned forward, forward, forward, and she was kissing him.  She was kissing Percy.  He tasted of sea salt and Coke and jelly beans and... 

She drew away, looking for something, anything, in his eyes.  He just looked a little embarrassed.

To his credit, he managed an awkward smile.  “Annabeth, I’m really sorry, I should have said before” - Annabeth tried to break in with a wave of apologies, but Percy brushed her off - “I don’t like people in that way.  I don’t know why.  I never have.”

Annabeth’s face felt like it was burning.  “I’m sorry,” she managed to whisper.  She took a breath, and repeated it more audibly.  “That was inconsiderate, and I should have asked.  I… I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Percy assured her.  “Honestly.  And it doesn’t have to change our friendship.”

Heart racing, Annabeth nodded slowly.  “You’re aromantic?” she asked eventually.  It might have been intrusive, but she’d set a pretty high record for that already.  A clarification wasn’t the worst she could do.

Percy confirmed it.

“What does your wrist say?” she questioned.

Blinking, he held his right arm out.  Annabeth could see nothing but tan skin and the ripples of veins, but soulmates’ names were only visible to their bearers. “Nothing,” Percy shrugged.  “I’m fine with that.  I have friends.”  There was a pause, before his eyes widened.  “What about yours?”

“Oh!”  In her embarrassment, Annabeth had totally forgotten, and she lifted her arm, a little shaky.  For a heartbeat, she was frightened that it would say Percy’s name anyway, but the handwriting that now permanently graced her wrist wasn’t any that she knew.  “Rey… Reyna.  I don’t know a Reyna.”  The name felt strange in her mouth.

Percy thought for a second, and shook his head.  “Neither,” he said.  “But you’ll find them.”

Annabeth murmured an agreement as she stared at her wrist, memorising the swirl of the _R_ , the elegancy of the long _Y_ , and wondering who her soulmate could be.

* * *

Later that night, Annabeth had abandoned any attempt at studying.  Her room was quiet as she sat cross-legged on her bed, laptop in front of her, fingers hovering over the keys.

Previously, she’d been determined not to be a cliché, but she couldn’t help herself as she clicked onto a baby names site and tapped in the five letters that would one day materialise as one of the most important people in her life.

 

_Reyna_

_from Spanish_ **_reina_ ** _: queen_

 

There wasn’t much more on the subject - about four hundred girls and a few boys had been named Reyna in America during Annabeth’s birth year, and it had the same meaning in Yiddish.  She switched to Facebook.

After scrolling through a few meaningless posts - the sappy anniversaries, blurry quotes, and food photos only reminded her of why she spent so little time on the site - she clicked the searchbar and typed in the name, judging that mutual friends would cause them to pop up if they went to Annabeth’s high school.

Nothing.

Annabeth shut the laptop’s lid and sent Percy a goodnight text before climbing into bed, her thumb tracing the letters on her wrist.

* * *

Exams passed, days crept into weeks and weeks into months, and Annabeth slowly stopped obsessing over her soulmate.  She didn’t forget about them, as such - the name was permanently there - but it was easy to pass it by the way one could walk into a bathroom and forget to brush their teeth.

The summer holidays swept by far too quickly, with nothing out of routine aside from Annabeth’s new habit of checking new people’s names.  It earned more than a few knowing smirks from her friends, but none of them pushed the subject and Annabeth didn’t offer up any information.  Maybe spreading the name would help her meet her soulmate faster, but it was so intensely personal that she wasn’t sure if she wanted to.

Eventually, school was due to start again.  It didn’t seem like a big deal until Annabeth remembered the possibility of new kids in her classes, but once she realised that, the _Reyna_ on her wrist began to take up most of her thoughts again.  Though she hadn’t told anyone other than Percy, she wasn’t particularly subtle about the situation, and most of the people around her ended up with some idea of what was going on - including, to her surprise, her family.  It was a change from their usual apathy towards her personal life, but she didn’t give any details to encourage it.

Term started on a Wednesday that year, and even after setting her alarm earlier for the past few days to prepare, it was all Annabeth could do to get out of bed on time and make it to her train with her uniform in reasonable order.  She exchanged grumbles with the kids at her table about the early hour, despite being glad to have something to occupy her again, and checked her timetable; first on Wednesdays was maths.

Once the warning bell had sounded, it took a lot of pushing to make her way through the cafeteria to the maths corridor, but she eventually found her classroom and leant against the wall. Kids all around her argued and shoved timetables in each others’ faces, or downed entire bottles of energy drink, or both.  The throng died down a couple of minutes after the main bell had rung, and the teachers deemed it safe to actually teach their classes.

Mr Brunner appeared exactly seven minutes after the bell and unlocked the classroom door, allowing Annabeth to finally get a look at her classmates.  To her dismay, she didn’t see many people whom she was close to; Leo Valdez grinned at her from where he’d already taken a seat with Jason Grace, so she settled for that group.  She recognised almost everyone in the room, with the exception of one girl whose nervous expression marked her out as new.  She was doing a pretty good job at hiding it, though, which earned enough respect that Annabeth smiled and patted the space beside her.  Vaguely, she hoped that she hadn’t set herself up for a year of hell.

Relieved, the girl quickly took the seat and murmured a, “Thank you.”  It was slightly accented.  Her long, dark braid fell over her shoulder as she leant to grab her pencilcase. 

Mr Brunner checked for any wanderers in the corridor, swung the door shut, and moved to the front of the classroom.  “So, who had a hard time getting up this morning?”

There were a few assentive murmurs from throughout the room, and Mr Brunner chuckled.  “Well, get used to it,” he said helpfully.  “Are there any totally new faces?”

The girl next to Annabeth raised a hand at that, and Mr Brunner nodded approvingly.  “What’s your name?”

“Reyna.”

Annabeth felt herself pale, and it took far too much effort to stay still.  She pulled her wrist down from the table as if anyone could see the name on it.  Around her, her classmates called to Reyna with welcomes, and a few of the bolder ones shouted warnings about Mr Brunner.  The latter were shut down with a weary look from the teacher.

“Well, Reyna, welcome to the school.  My name is Mr Brunner and I’ll be your maths teacher for this year at least, and I hope you have a pleasant time as part of the school community.”  He rummaged in a box and tossed her a fresh jotter - the maths department were stringent about giving away supplies, and the rest of the class were reusing the previous year’s notebooks - before announcing that they could chat for the period as he had to sort out his computer files 

Any other time, Annabeth would have been grateful for what was essentially a free period, but she was stuck at a table with Leo, Jason, and the girl who was apparently her soulmate.  Leo meant well, but he was unforgivably annoying, and Jason seemed to have the emotional range of a brick.  He was dating one of her best friends, and she could never understand what Piper saw in him.  The addition of Reyna just added panic to Annabeth’s irritation.

The rest of the class broke into chatter, and Reyna leant across their table before Annabeth’s group’s silence could become awkward.  “Jason?”

Jason blinked, before his expression melted into recognition.  “Oh!  Hi.”

Brows furrowing, Annabeth cut into the conversation.  “You know each other?”

“We went to school together for a while,” Reyna explained, but Jason didn’t add anything more, so she added, “We lost touch.”  Annabeth didn’t miss the way her fist clenched on her pencil, and figured it wasn’t for lack of trying to keep contact on Reyna’s part.

The tension must not have passed by Leo, because he changed the subject.  “ _Queen_?”  Annabeth vaguely remembered it to be the translation of Reyna’s name.

Reyna flashed him a dirty look, before allowing herself to look interested.  “You speak Spanish?" 

Grinning, Leo tapped his fingers on the desk in a rhythm that could have been Morse code or just energy-induced.  “Yeah.  My family’s Mexican." 

“I was born in Puerto Rico,” Reyna said, looking grateful for the switch in topic.  She flipped her jotter to the front, and wrote her name in elegant handwriting; _Reyna Ramírez-Arellano_.  The neat letters of her first name were exact matches to the ones on Annabeth’s wrist. 

Realising she hadn’t actually introduced herself yet, Annabeth took advantage of the lull in conversation.  “Well, you know Jason.  This is Leo,” - Leo winked and made finger guns, and Annabeth tried not to look too irritated - “and my name is Annabeth.”  She scanned Reyna’s expression for any sign of her name having any meaning, but Reyna just smiled.  Either she hadn’t had her first kiss, or… no.  She wasn’t going to think about the alternative.

They made small talk for the next forty minutes, skipping between subjects in the awkward way that was only really suitable for situations where the participants were just passing time.  Annabeth learned that Reyna’s hair was a pain to wash, that she loved sports, and that her laugh was a rare but rewarding thing to coax out.  She was less interested in the knowledge that Jason had spent most of the summer playing football and that Leo had invented a kinetically powered drone, but she did her best to keep up with the conversation.

Eventually, Annabeth checked the time and nudged Reyna.  “Do you know anyone else in the school?”  When Reyna admitted she didn’t, Annabeth picked up a pen.  “I can give you my number, if you want.  It’s a big school, you’ll need someone to show you around a bit.”

The look Reyna shot Annabeth was withering, but she didn’t hide her gratitude.  “Thank you,” she said as Annabeth scrawled her number on a slip of paper.  “You don’t need to baby me, though.”

“Shut up,” Annabeth said good-naturedly, handing over the paper and trying not to blush.  “I assume you don’t have anyone to sit with at break and lunch?  If my friends don’t scare you off, you’re welcome to join us.”

Reyna blinked, as if kindness shown towards her was foreign, but grinned.  “I’m not scared easily,” she smirked.  “Thanks, Annabeth.”

Before Annabeth could get a word in, Leo reached across the table and snatched up Reyna’s timetable.  “What are you in next?  History with Miss Collins… good luck.”

“She doesn’t like you because you spend more time making miniature cannons out of pencils than actually concentrating in class,” Annabeth reprimanded.  “She’s a good teacher.”  She would have grabbed the timetable back, but Reyna had already caught Leo’s wrist and her expression was murderous.

Leo gulped and let go.  “Jeez.  Don’t do that.  You look like Annabeth.”

Raising an eyebrow, Annabeth stared at him.  “I don’t see many similarities,” she said.  It wasn’t a lie.  Reyna was autumn to Annabeth’s spring; her skin glowed light bronze in the rare sunlight streaming through the windows, and her flashing eyes were as deep a black as her thick hair.  She was the strength of a storm and the valued warmth of a sunny day.  Annabeth was all blonde curls and light breezes; her skin was slightly tanned but altogether pale, and her grey eyes took on the tones of her surroundings.  Nordic ancestry left her with high cheekbones and thin lips - Reyna had the bone structure of a queen.

Leo shook his head.  “I’m talking about the death glare.  Both of you look like you’re literally ready to kill someone.”

Laughing, Reyna shrugged as if she’d heard it before.  The bell signalling the end of the period rang before Annabeth could defend herself, and she rolled her eyes and stuffed her pen into her bag.  A glance at her own timetable revealed that her next class was in the same corridor as Reyna’s, so she gestured for Reyna to follow as she headed down the corridor and pulled her phone out of her blazer pocket.

__-help I’ve found her_ _

The switchover meant Percy would hopefully receive the text.  Sure enough, he replied seconds later, albeit with a single word.

__-her?__

Annabeth gave Reyna a murmured commentary of where they were as they wove through crowds and up stairs, Annabeth doing her best not to fall over as she texted.

__-Reyna_ _

_-she’s in my maths class I let her sit next to me & she introduced herself & I freaked _

_-you can meet her at break she’ll be at our table_

They were nearing the social subjects corridor; Annabeth pointed Reyna towards her classroom and promised to meet her afterwards, and was heading to her own when her phone buzzed with another text.

__-omg did u tell her?__

Without the time to type out a more sarcastic reply, Annabeth settled for “of _course not but I gtg_ ” and slipped her phone away as she entered the classroom.

 

* * *

 

The day passed without incident; Reyna got along well with Annabeth’s friends, and was in her P.E. class as well as her maths.  They texted occasionally, hung out at break and lunch, and the soulmate situation aside, Annabeth was glad to have made a new friend.

 

They didn’t have a practical P.E. class until Friday; the Wednesday’s had been excused because it was the first day back and no one had remembered their kit.  Reyna hauled her own out of her schoolbag and nudged Annabeth.  “We need a school t-shirt, shorts, and trainers, right?”

 

“Yeah,” Annabeth confirmed, realising with a hint of embarrassment that she’d have to get changed next to Reyna.

 

One of the girls in their class called out to the passing teacher before shutting the changing room door.  “Can we go to the fitness suite?”

 

“Another class booked it.  You’re on badminton,” the teacher replied easily, earning a chorus of groans.  They were broken off as the attention turned to Reyna.  She’d been in the class before, but the theory classes had consisted mostly of teachers flurrying around and sorting equipment while the pupils chatted.

 

“What’s your name?” one of the more bearable girls called.  Annabeth could never remember what she was called - Silena, maybe.

 

Pausing, Reyna checked the question was directed at her, then answered simply with her name.  The conversation moved on as Annabeth quickly changed.

 

Normally, Annabeth would totally block out her P.E. class’ conversation - she didn’t like most of them and didn’t pretend to, and it was mutual - but when the word ‘soulmates’ was mentioned, she couldn’t help but glance up.  They were arguing over the name one girl had received over the summer, but when she saw Annabeth looking, Silena included her in the conversation.

 

“Annie, you kissed anyone yet?” she teased.  “It’s probably Percy, so I don’t know what’s keeping you.”

 

“It’s Annabeth,” she corrected.  “And it’s not Percy.”  The words slipped out before she thought about them, and Silena pounced.

 

“Oh my god,” she said, jaw dropping almost comedically.  “You have!  What’s his name?”

 

One of the girls tutted.  “You don’t know it’s a guy, Silena.”  Turning to Annabeth, she asked, “Really, though, what are they called?”

 

“It can be a gender-neutral name, but I’m not saying it,” she answered coolly, trying to shut the topic down.

 

“You like girls?” someone called, eyes widening as she hid her bra with no effort to be discreet.

 

SIlena whacked her with a t-shirt.  “Shut up.  It’s none of your business, and if Annabeth wanted to look at tits she wouldn’t be interested in yours.”

 

Even with the unexpected defence, Annabeth felt her cheeks burn.  She turned away and focused on tying her laces.  Reyna hadn’t contributed to the discussion, but she flashed Annabeth a sympathetic smile and threw a glare at the girl whom Silena had snapped at.

 

Laces tied, Annabeth waited for Reyna and headed to the hall where the mini courts were marked out.  Reyna glanced over her shoulder as the others followed.  “What’s their problem with you?” she murmured.

 

Annabeth swallowed.  She may not have liked the girls, but she didn’t want to vilify them to Reyna.  “It’s partly my fault,” she admitted.  “I’m not a nice person.”

 

Reyna didn’t buy it.  “How so?”

 

Biting her lip, Annabeth thought about it.  “I have too much pride and not enough patience,” she said eventually.  “I don’t make it easy for a lot of people to like me, and I don’t really care.”

 

Apparently, Reyna appreciated the honesty, because she shrugged and nodded and changed the subject.  “More to the point; what’s their problem with badminton?”

 

Annabeth managed a laugh at that.  “Everyone in this class does P.E. for a qualification, which means we get pretty bitter when the teachers avoid actually coaching us,” she explained.  “I prefer badminton, but most of the others prefer the gym upstairs.”

 

Reyna considered that as she handed Annabeth a racquet and plucked one for herself from the bag.   She grabbed a shuttlecock from a nearby box before asking, “Do you have a partner?”

 

It took an awkward second for Annabeth to realise she was talking about badminton, but she hopefully recovered quickly enough that Reyna didn’t notice.  “Want to go with me?”

 

Reyna nodded an affirmative, and they headed to opposite sides of the net which temporarily split the hall in half.  At first, Annabeth kept her swings low and careful, but it wasn’t long before she realised Reyna was a good player.  A _really_ good player.  Quickly, their game became quicker, almost violent as the shuttle flew across the net nearly faster than Annabeth could reach it.

 

To her mild annoyance, Reyna was much better than her, and when their teacher called for the class to change, their score was 10-6 to Reyna.  Annabeth decided that she really needed to work on her pride, and only rolled her eyes amicably when Reyna brought it up at break.

 

She’d settled in well at the school.  It only took a few days for Reyna to find her way around the building - impressive, considering its size - and before long she didn’t feel like an addition to the friendship group.  She joined the swim team, much to Percy’s delight; she was almost as good a swimmer as he was, and he’d basically grown up in a pool or in the sea.

 

Annabeth soon undoubtedly counted Reyna as a close friend.  One Friday, around a month into term, she nudged Reyna and asked, “Do you want to come over to mine later?”

 

Regretfully, Reyna looked up from her maths textbook and shook her head.  Annabeth hid her disappointment as she said, “I mean, I want to, but my sister’s kind of protective when it comes to people she doesn’t know.”  She paused for a second, before asking, “How about you come to mine?”

 

“Oh!” Annabeth thought about it.  Reyna was cagey with her home life - Annabeth couldn’t be bitter, since she was equally so - but she sung the praises of her older sister at every opportunity she had.  “Sure.  She’ll be okay with having me round?”

 

“Definitely,” Reyna said, before ducking back to her work as Mr Brunner shot them an exasperated look.

 

They walked to Reyna’s flat when the period drew to an end, Annabeth shooting a text to her dad to ask last-minute permission and Reyna sending one to her sister - Hylla, she said - to check having a guest was okay.  Both phones buzzed with confirmations soon afterwards.

 

When they arrived at the block of flats, Reyna bypassed the lift, although there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it.  It turned out, to Annabeth’s relief, that her flat was on the first floor.

 

She threw Annabeth a quick smile as she unlocked the door, before shouting a greeting in Spanish.  There was the sound of a chair being pushed back, and Reyna’s sister appeared in the hallway.

 

The first thing Annabeth noticed was how similar she looked to Reyna, and the second was how young she was.  The sisters were almost identical; Hylla had the same hard eyes and powerful posture, though her hair was shorter and pulled back in a high ponytail and Annabeth judged her a little taller than Reyna.  She seemed to be age mostly by tiredness, but she couldn’t have been older than her early twenties.

 

She made her way down the hall in a few strides and wrapped Reyna in a quick hug, before smiling at Annabeth.  The expression made her a little less intimidating.  “Annabeth, right?  I’m Hylla,” she said cheerfully. Turning back to Reyna, she gestured down the hallway.  “I’m not preparing juice and biscuits for you.  The kitchen’s right there,” she added dryly.  Reyna only rolled her eyes and thanked her, before leading Annabeth to her room.

 

It smelled faintly of fresh paint, and was surprisingly simple.  A double bed was tucked in one corner by a curtained window, the linen clean and white with the only decoration a deep purple runner which was spread across the foot.  A desk and a wardrobe took up the rest of the wall, and aside from a chest of drawers, the rest of the space was taken up by bookshelves.  Pushing her bag under her desk, Reyna made a vague gesture which Annabeth judged to mean she was to put her stuff wherever.  She opted to drop her bag by the door, and sat down on the neatly-made bed beside Reyna.

 

Unsure of what to say, Annabeth brought up a couple of the books she’d spotted on the shelf, and the conversation flowed from there.  It was only broken when Reyna left to grab cans of juice, and when she returned Annabeth thought for a second before cautiously asking, “So, you live with Hylla?”

 

Reyna’s hands faltered a little as she opened her can, but she nodded.  “Yeah,” she said.  She didn’t offer anything else for a while, but Annabeth waited just in case. After a few seconds, though she seemed chary about it, Reyna continued.  “Our mother died when I was really young, so we grew up with our father, but…”  She smiled, but there wasn’t any happiness in it.  “It was because of mental illness, but he was really abusive.  Hylla took the hits because she didn’t want us to be separated, and got custody over me as soon as it was legal.”

 

Annabeth stared at her, caught herself, and murmured an, “I’m sorry,”, but she knew Reyna hadn’t told her for sympathy.  The fact that she’d opened her walls to confide in her was a signal of how much she trusted Annabeth.

Annabeth didn’t push any further, but made sure Reyna wasn’t upset and led the conversation back to safer grounds.  Soon afterwards, she remembered she was expected home for dinner, and Reyna gave her an unexpected hug as she left.

 

* * *

 

Life went on as usual.  Just before Christmas, Annabeth had Percy round to study.  It felt so normal - it could have been any of the nights when they’d done the same in the past two years.  It could have been the night when she’d kissed him.

 

Annabeth must have been staring at her wrist, because Percy stopped writing to look at her.  “Why won’t you tell her?” he asked curiously.

 

“Because…” Annabeth struggled to find words to describe something she wasn’t even certain about herself.  “I’m not really sure.  I didn’t want to dump it on her when she was new to the school, and now I’ve kept it secret for so long…”

 

“What if she thinks the same?”

 

The suggestion startled her, and Annabeth considered it.  What if Reyna had kissed someone during the time they’d known each other?  More worryingly, what if she hadn’t said anything because she thought Annabeth had a different soulmate?  She knew Annabeth knew her own, but Annabeth hadn’t said anything to anyone.  There was no reason for Reyna to believe it was herself.

 

She bit her lip and pushed the thought aside.  “I’m not exactly going to text her ‘hey, by the way you’re my soulmate’, am I?” she asked cuttingly.  “It’ll work out.  It has to.”

 

“Hey, I’m not trying to pressure you,” Percy said quickly.  “It will work out.”

 

“Yeah.”  Annabeth stared at her notebook for a long time before quietly saying, “Can we talk about something else?”

 

“Of course.”

 

Neither said anything more on the subject, but the possibility ran circles around Annabeth’s head for a long time afterwards.

 

* * *

 

April bloomed, with sweet breezes and warm showers and nights painted with stars like fireworks and grass shaded in the deepest verdant greens.  It was on one of these nights that Reyna was sleeping over at Annabeth's, and it felt like the world was their own.

 

There was a certain rebelliousness to sitting outside at two in the morning; it wasn't as if they were doing anything other than sitting on Annabeth’s porch, but her small garden overlooked a patchwork maze of city lights and the silence was tainted only by the occasional lone car or fox.

 

Reyna looked far too beautiful for someone who was in an oversized t-shirt and shorts, Annabeth thought.  Her hands were poised on her knees in a mindless elegance, and her dark eyes flashed in the moonlight.  When she felt Annabeth looking, she turned, and considered her for a long moment.

 

“Can I ask you something?”

 

It shouldn’t have sent sparks running through Annabeth's veins the way it did, but she tried to keep her expression neutral.  “Of course.”

 

Reyna glanced away.  “You don’t have to answer this, obviously, but…  is your soulmate a girl?”

 

Annabeth blinked, and blinked again, and stared at Reyna.  Then she took a breath and said, “Yeah.  She is.”

 

She couldn't read Reyna’s expression when her own emotions were this erratic.  Reyna’s second question was quiet, but it resonated in the soft darkness.  “What’s her name?”

 

Instead of answering, Annabeth flipped her wrist over as if Reyna could see the name on it. After an eternity under the stars, and hoping she wouldn't regret this, she asked, “Can I kiss you?”

 

Reyna didn’t give herself time for a verbal response; Annabeth had barely finished her sentence when her hand cupped her cheek.  It was warm and dry and her fingertips touched Annabeth's hair, but it was forgotten about when Annabeth leaned forward.

 

Reyna's lips tasted of the oranges they’d been eating earlier, and kissing her was autumn winds and spring nights and fire and flame.  It was soft and yearning and gentle but fierce.  It was everything beautiful, and Annabeth only pulled back because she was smiling too widely to continue.

 

She wasn't the only one grinning.  Reyna’s smile was rare but it was beautiful, and it only grew when she read out the new name on her wrist.  It sounded like a prayer, like a promise.

 

“It’s really small,” she said through shaky laughter.  “You have awful handwriting.”

  
Annabeth tried to shove her off the porch, but they ended up kissing instead.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!! i really appreciate comments, whether they're feedback or suggestions for improvement :)


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